The Open University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
This project aims to develop an online learning platform which helps primary or secondary school students to enhance their motivation for study through the integration of a game. E-learning is a trend for efficient teaching and can be used to make a revolutionary change in lessons instead of just being used for delivering teaching materials. This project intends to provide an interesting learning atmosphere in classes by including in the lesson a virtual environment, game elements and pet battling. The system can improve the students’ learning motivation and interactions between them and their teachers. Also, it encourages students to learn more, with the participation of teachers. In order to build a better relationship between students and teachers, teachers can monitor students’ learning schedules and thus identify those in need. As the project is designed to include game elements, this provides play experiences for students, such as pet management. The competitive environment can stimulate students' motivation to learn and be more active in lessons.
The proposed system has a three-tier architecture. At the presentation layer, teachers can monitor the students’ learning process, while students complete learning activities and manage their pets. With the game framework, the business layer handles all the logistics related to both the teachers’ and students’ requests, such as grading and pet battling. The database server, the data access layer, helps to store the students’ data for the purpose of monitoring learning progress. For testing, a prototype system has been developed and experiments have been designed to test its portability and usability.
It was found that the gamification of education is attractive to students. The evaluation indicated that students concentrated more during lessons and were more willing to prepare the lesson for answering the teacher’s question in order to earn experience points. The Pet-Unia can also enhance interactions, and improve learning motivation and teaching effectiveness, when compares with traditional lessons. Teachers think that it is convenient and effective for student learning as it is more interesting than traditional lessons; and they also feel that Pet-Unia can enhance the interaction between teachers and students.
Our value propositions is “Studying fun, linking teachers and students.” We want to change the current situation in education, which has an image of being boring and flat, into a fun, enjoyable environment. As Hong Kong’s education system is said to involve spoon-feeding, challenges apart from examination papers will greatly stimulate students’ learning motivation.